CRMIT is a leading Oracle Platinum Partner for Oracle ’s cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. The company has implemented Oracle CRM on Demand for more than 100 customers in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States.

CRMIT planned to expand its global business and meet aggressive expansion targets and wanted to do this without increasing its costs. After evaluating several solutions, CRMIT deployed Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management on Oracle Cloud to create a customer-experience-focused platform for powering growth by automating sales, marketing, contract, territory, and incentive compensation management across its global operations. Following its success, CRMIT is extending Oracle Fusion CRM to customers to empower transformation from an enterprise-centric to a client-centric business.

Managing “Customer Experience” (CX) is the buzz word today in Information Technology sector. But this blog has nothing to do with leveraging technology to create experience but it is all about some simple strategies to create difference in customer experience for Businesses

One of the easiest ways to create a great experience is to create a false feeling of great experience 🙂 ….May sound abstract but that is what brand managers generally do. One good example is the ad campaigns from Coca Cola with message “Open Happiness”. You would have seen a number of ads featuring Aamir Khan making you feel excited about drinking a bottle of Coke though it is the same good old Coke around for decades. The idea here is to create a fictional effect for the customers by branding it right from customer experience stand point. Ensure you have the CX element as part of your corporate branding strategy

The next option is to create an ambience that touches user’s senses. Something that smells, feels, hears, tastes and looks good. This is a more common strategy adopted by many businesses. When you can get the same coffee for Rs 15, you go to Café Coffee Day and have it for Rs 150 for the reason that the ambience make you feel as if you are having a great coffee. So whatever business you are in, you can create that sort of sensory experience. To give an example a notebook manufacturer can make notebooks that are good to feel, a restaurant can have comfortable furniture for cosy sitting, even your launder man can make a difference in experience by neat handling, no wonder airlines employ great looking ladies as Air Hostess etc. The key is though your core product remains same, you create a customer experience by touching user senses that makes them feel the core product is lot superior to others, though it may not be true 🙂

The other options include creating a community around your product. Though it is a big investment exercise in those days to create community of interest for your products, with advent of Social media like twitter and facebook, it is not that tough today. Volumes written about how Harley- Davidson, created a loyal die-hard fans community and it is now true even in other side of the world. Do a look into the facebook page of Enfield you would really love to own that piece of machine if you go through the postings and interactions in this facebook page of Royal Enfield fans & customers. Ensure you don’t miss our these simple cost-effective community building opportunities even if you are running a small coffee-shop business in your neighboring suburb.

Some of them create an experience by taking you through the way your product is created though it is not an option for many. Best known example is Wine Industry. Though it is quiet famous in Western world, it is picking up fast in India too. Have a look into this web page http://www.heritagewinery.in/winery-tours.html on winery tours organized in Bangalore. May be if you take a cursory walk around your restaurant kitchen showing how the great dishes are made, who knows your customer may love it.

So the bottom-line is though there are always big-ticket investments that you can make to create difference in customer experience by product / service/ technology innovation, you shouldn’t miss our any of these interesting quick to implement options to create a difference “Today” in your business.

We are pleased to state the CRMIT has successfully participated in the Touch Tour Mobile APP Conference that was held on 17th and 18th of November, 2012 at Tidel Park, Chennai. This conference was jointly organized by Microsoft, which was the platinum sponsor and 5 User Group India & Pluralsight, which were community partners.

Touch Tour is a community-driven event aimed at bringing the entire mobile community together under a single platform, thus making it more enriching and fun filled. There were lots of interactive sessions in this conference that talked about mobile app. design and development with professionals from the community getting an opportunity to showcase their applications. Most of the participants at the conference were mobile app designers, mobile app developers, HTML/CSS/JS Ninjas and other professionals, who had the penchant and desire for developing mobile applications.

The first day of the session was highly interactive, wherein there were lots of technical sessions addressed by some of the eminent speakers in their respective areas of expertise, throwing light on some of the latest technological advancements in the mobile applications space. Representing CRMIT, one of our senior directors addressed a technical session on Mobile UX, providing some valuable insights and updates in this area of specialization. The session was highly informative and engaging, delving on the various aspects of Mobile UX experience, supported by easy to understand examples. The session was well received and appreciated by all the participants, who attended in large numbers.

The second day of the event had two parallel workshops that were limited to around 20 – 40 participants. These workshops had provided an opportunity for the participants to interact with the speaker and acquaint themselves with the latest tools and technologies. Overall the event was highly successful that provided a strong platform for various professionals to show case their applications, share knowledge on contemporary and emerging technologies, develop new professional contacts, learn new tools & tricks to turn their apps into business and much more.

With lots of interactions, presentations and great moments to cherish at the Touch Tour event, CRMIT fondly looks forward to many more such events in the days to come.

I am sure that everyone who reads this article would minimally have a dozen of loyalty cards of retailers they visit but not many wouldn’t have really thought through on who really benefits from it. My strong opinion is Loyalty cards are more beneficial to the retailer than you. I have summarized my views both from India as well as from US perspective here.

In India, I have the loyalty cards for many of the big box retailers like Reliance, HyperCity, and Star Bazaar etc and generally the concept in India is to receive a free loyalty card if you are interested provided you make a minimal purchase of X bucks. If you don’t make the minimum purchase but you are interested in a loyalty card you can buy one for a nominal charge. Apart from the regular discounts that companies announce in newspapers, web etc which is available for anyone who goes for shopping, the only additional benefit of loyalty card is to accumulate points for every shopping you make. The points can be redeemed over a period of time typically for in-store purchase (typically private label brands) in future. But the key issue over here is the number of points you get for every buck you spend is very minimal and the equivalent value of these points in money terms is very low. To give example typically retailers may give 1 point for every 100 bucks you buy and this one point translates to a value of 25 paisa during redemption. Though it is a point that there is nothing wrong in getting something instead of nothing, but the cost at which you end up earning this is more than the value you get from it. Assuming on a normal visit you purchase grocery worth of 2000 Rs from any of the big box retailers a simple math would demonstrate it. Typically there are two additional costs you incur in buying from big box retailers against purchasing your local grocery stores that is right across the street. They are cost of fuel, minimally a litre by car (Rs 75) and parking charges levied by most of them (Rs 20) adding to a total minimal cost of Rs 95 in addition to killing your time by browsing around the stores against a phone call to your retailer sitting right across the street who delivers what you want to your home. The points you get from the box retailers for this Rs 2000 purchase is 20 and its equivalent value is Rs 5 against the overall cost you incur of Rs 100. From the retailer stand point he not only has your complete profile and buying patterns which is a treasure that he builds over a period of time but also create a fictional marketing strategy that makes you feel as if this a good deal against buying from your nearby grocery store. You might fall under exceptional category if your residence is just opposite to these retailers …You are also exposed to the risk of compromising your privacy (which they can potentially sell to others) as well as polluting the environment.

Now coming back to US, my experience was really hilarious. When I went to Kroger for the first time I saw few deals which are applicable only for people with Loyalty cards. Assuming the concept of issuing a loyalty cards would be in similar line to India (minimum purchase or purchase at a cost), I didn’t buy it. In a subsequent visit, when I get time to enquire about this card, they told, it is free to my surprise. Though the situation here demands you to take your car and travel to a grocery store unlike India, the value you get out of these points are minimal (In my case it is completely of no use as the value can only be redeemed against fuel purchase and I don’t own a car here). Same was applicable for many other stores that I visited like Walgreen footlocker etc. From the retailers front I personally believe the return he gets from loyalty is very minimal as anyways most of the times you typically end up going to the store that is nearby (doesn’t matter whether you have a card or not) but the return that he gets from harnessing your personal profile including the database of every item that you purchase is huge. This would be used in an ethical manner to promote some targeted deals for you or used unethically to sell it to third parties to make money out of it. So don’t be surprised if you get so many emails, phone calls etc after registering for few of these loyalty programs though I am sure that well known brands would not do it (If you want to be sure better read the privacy conditions carefully before you sign up)

On the contrary there is another retail store Publix, who strictly has a concept of “No Loyalty Cards”. The company’s rationale is very simple. They don’t want to differentiate on price to any customers who visit their store. If at all they want to offer a deal, they publish their offers in form of electronic coupons in web. On top of it your privacy is completely taken care. I would call this as a real good example of meaningful differentiation strategy than blindly following the mass.

We at CRMIT Solutions take pride in participating in the 2nd edition of the Touch Tour Mobile APP Conference & Workshop, scheduled to be held on 17th & 18th of November, 2012 at Tidel Park, Chennai. This conference is jointly organized by Microsoft, which is the platinum sponsor and 5 User Group India & Pluralsight, which are community partners.

Touch Tour is a community-driven event aimed at bringing the entire mobile community together under a single platform, thus making it more enriching and fun filled. You can expect a lot of interactive sessions in this conference that are focused towards app. design and development, aimed to encourage professionals from the community to showcase their applications. Apart from that, you can also expect some interesting contests and also win attractive prizes. So, stay tuned!

The first day of the event will enable the community to get together, network and have fun. This includes a lot of interactive sessions, wherein one of our senior directors at CRMIT, would be addressing a technical session on Mobile UX, providing some valuable insights and updates in this area of specialization. Similarly, there would be other technical sessions addressed by some of the eminent speakers in the respective areas of expertise, throwing light on some of the latest technological advancements in the mobile applications space. In addition to these interactive sessions, members from the community would have an opportunity to showcase their apps to exhibit their creative prowess. So, be there to enjoy these exciting moments!

The second day of the event will have 2 parallel workshops that are limited to around 20 – 40 participants. This workshop will allow the participants to spend considerable amount of time with the speaker and acquaint themselves with the latest tools and technologies.

What will you gain?
• Confidence to deliver your mobile strategy
• Enhanced knowledge on the mobile operating systems
• New professional contacts to set you in the perfect direction for your app
• The tools and tricks required to turn your app into a business
• And much more….

Register Now

Avail the opportunity to be the first person to register for Day 1 at just Rs.300/- There is a sponsorship opportunity for every budget level, from a highly visible booth in the Exhibit Hall to your company’s name on important Conference materials – but note that these opportunities might get filled up fast.

What’s more? You can even win a FREE entry to Touch Tour 2012 event. Just click here, enter your email id and share the generated URL with your friends. If your URL generates more number of unique visitors, you will win a FREE ticket to attend the conference.